The Standard

Cash for Access: $8000 for National Party Cabinet, $10000 for PM

Written By: - Date published: 1:16 pm, March 25th, 2026 - 5 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, election funding, national, same old national - Tags: , , ,

The National Party is offering cash for access, in a move reminiscent of the UK Tories.

For the grand price of $10,000 you can secure a table with Prime Minister Luxon.

For the grand price of $8,000 you can have a table with Senior Cabinet Ministers like Stanford, Willis, Mitchell and Brown etc, or National Party’s President Sylvia Wood.

According to Ethan Griffiths, who broke the story, the advertisement was posted to Maureen Pugh’s Facebook page, but removed shortly after.

While political parties do run fundraiser events running into thousands of dollars, it appears to be the first time that you can access tiered access and a visible floor plan in this manner.

A reminder also that the right wing parties, especially National, out raise the left significantly, and that’s excluding affiliate groups such as Taxpayers Union etc.

For the 2023 election, National raised double the amount of any party – giving them a war chest of $10.4 million. ACT got $4.26m and NZ First $1.88m bringing the Coalition to tower over the left which came in at a total amount of $8 million, and don’t forget Green MPs provide 10% of their salaries to the Party

(According to Newsroom’s Laura Walters, in 2023, Labour raised $4.77m; the Greens $3.31m; and Te Pāti Māori raised just $160,749.58 – a sizeable chunk of that from a one-off $50,000 donation from party president John Tamihere.)

5 comments on “Cash for Access: $8000 for National Party Cabinet, $10000 for PM ”

  1. Ad 1

    If you go through the major donations from 2023, ACT is the standout and truly the worst at $$-per-vote.

    The Greens now have a good set of donors to tap too, and all power to their team for that.

    From rich list to big knit: The year’s chunky party donations, at a glance | The Spinoff

  2. Rakuraku 2

    You could order a "Word Salad" off the menu if you were dining with Luxon.

  3. MJR 3

    For the grand price of $10,000 you [and six of your mates] can secure a table with Prime Minister Luxon.

    Your point still stands but best to be accurate about these things.

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